


Break the Curse to Breathe

by Marinawings



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Action/Adventure, Bromance, Curse Breaking, Curses, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Lots of rain, Pneumonia, Rain, Sick Ignis Scientia, Sickfic, Yay for books and libraries, gigantoads
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-11-27
Packaged: 2021-01-15 20:30:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 13,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21259205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marinawings/pseuds/Marinawings
Summary: When the boys fail to rescue a witch from a gigantoad,  she curses them with her dying breath... resulting in Ignis coming down with a serious illness and all of them struggling to survive as they are stalked by the monsters they usually hunt.





	1. Curses and Accursed Rain

**Author's Note:**

> If you are reading Upon This Rock, don't worry! That one is finished and will be posted. I will be posting this one simultaneously. It is the result of a Bingo challenge in which my card gave me this lovely combination: hiding illness, being stalked, and curses. It is also finished, so don't worry about not getting to the end of it. :)
> 
> This was supposed to be a oneshot, but I'm addicted to writing this stuff. :)
> 
> Brace yourself for lots of ominous coughing!

**Ignis**

Constant cold, constant rain, could weigh on a man, Ignis reflected as he jogged along beside the Alstor Slough, beside his friends, his head pounding. An influx of gigantoads had kept them busy for the last several days, and they’d all been in a bad mood after failing to rescue a civilian from one of the hideous creatures. 

The woman had been dying when they got there, her lungs crushed already by the toad that had jumped on her and pinned her. There had been nothing they could do, but Ignis had tried to soothe the woman. He’d knelt over her with a potion. He’d known she was too far gone, but had thought that at least the potion could ease her passing. He’d explained this, but she hadn’t been appreciative.

“Curse you!” she’d shouted, spitting blood and saliva. “I curse you! For letting me die, you will suffer my fate! Your body will fail you! Your breath will not come easy! The hunters will be hunted! May my specter haunt you until you die!” 

And then, she had died, with an angry grimace on her face.

They’d all been shaken.

They still were, in a different way now after finding out that the woman, Selucia, had been something of a villain in these parts, regarded as a witch, bitter and twisted and possibly crazy. She had possessed some ability with herbs and elemancy and had used them to play dangerous, harmful pranks on others. 

Ignis had dreamed of her twice since watching her die four days previously. Each time, she had appeared as a shadowy, laughing ghoul, mocking him from the corner of her eye. He hadn’t confided these dark dreams in his friends. They had enough to worry about with this abominable weather and another stressful hunt on the horizon. Instead of complaining, he focused his energy on cooking warm, nutritious meals and making sure Noctis, Prompto,and Gladio were taking care of themselves.

A headache had nagged him for two days, perhaps a product of the insomnia produced by his nightmares. He was also plagued by weariness and a scratchy throat, probably additional effects of poor weather and poor sleep. 

“Uh, guys?” 

Prompto’s normally cheery voice broke through Ignis’s dismal reflections.

“What is it?” he asked, dropping back from Noctis and Gladio. 

The little blond fellow glanced over his shoulder toward the shadows of the forest. “I think something’s following us.”

“Noct!” Ignis called ahead, patting Prompto’s shoulder. “Hold up!”

Noctis and Gladio turned and came back to where Ignis and Prompto stood.

“What is it?” the Lucian royal asked. 

“Listen,” Prompto whispered. 

The four friends went still and quiet. 

A twig snapped. Something sloshed through a puddle of water. A heavy breath huffed. 

“Think it’s the toad?” Gladio wondered. 

“Could be. Whatever it is, it won’t catch us off guard,” Ignis replied. “How shall we surprise our stalker?”

“Split up?” Noct suggested. “If it’s just one guy or one monster, it will probably follow one team, leaving the other to circle around behind it and outflank it.”

Ignis smiled a little, pushing his spectacles up his nose. “Good plan, Noct.” He was proud of his friend, his king. Noctis had grown up so much over the last few months… and apparently, he had been listening to his advisor’s advice on strategy. “Where would you like us to go?”

“Gladio, Prompto, keep heading toward the shack by the water,” Noctis decided. “Ignis, you and I are going to circle around and try to outflank the enemy. If it turns to follow us… Gladio, Prompto, you know what to do.”

Gladio smiled slowly. “Yeah.”

“We’ve got your back, buddy!” Prompto declared. 

“Alright, team. Let’s split up!” Noctis ordered. 

Ignis and Noctis slipped into the woods to the right, while Gladio and Prompto continued down the path they had been following. The air in the forest was oppressive, heavy and humid, and Ignis’s scratchy throat tightened, his chest itching with a cough. He held it back, swallowing down the pain in his throat. No need to alarm Noct--or alert their stalker to his position. 

“See anything?” Noctis whispered as they advanced on the enemy’s projected position. 

“Nothing yet,” Ignis replied, his voice roughened by withholding a cough. He listened, then grabbed Noct’s arm. “I think it’s following us.”

“Alright.” Noctis swallowed visibly. “So what’s the plan?”

“Continue as if we’re looking for it and hope Gladio and Prompto are on its trail. Be ready to defend yourself at any second, or warp to safety if need be.”

Noctis sighed. “I’m not leaving you behind, Specs.”

“We don’t know what we’re dealing with yet,” Ignis reminded him. “It sounds rather large, and for its size, it moves quickly. We must use extreme caution, and your safety is paramount.”

“Iggy--”

_Crrrnnch._

Behind them. Closer. 

“Steady,” Ignis whispered. “It’s right on top of us.”

And then, quite literally, it was--a gigantoad, the biggest Ignis had ever seen, leaping at them, its slimy red tongue lolling, bulbous muddy body quivering. 

Noctis warped out of the way, and Ignis cartwheeled out of the creature’s path. It splashed down on the muddy forest floor, wriggling, hopping, casting its tongue about in search of the hunters, its prey.

Gladio’s wordless cry of aggression rang through the woods, seeming to clear a path through the drizzle and mist. Ignis slid closer to the lurching toad, to link his attack with Gladio’s. They both struck the creature from behind--Gladio with his greatsword, Ignis with his daggers. The big toad gurgled and growled, spinning on them, then flinching back as Prompto’s bullets popped through the air, punching through the fleshy hide on its cheeks. 

Noctis came warping in next, a violent blue blur, slicing deep into the toad’s right foreleg, crippling it. He narrowly dodged its lashing tongue, rolling out of the way in a move Ignis had taught him and Gladio had forced him to practice over and over again. 

The springy tongue shot out at Noctis again. Prompto and Ignis moved in tandem--Ignis to drag Noctis out of the way, Prompto to fire, blasting the tongue in half. The toad sputtered, shuffling back through the mud, backing into a tree, clumsy now in its agony. 

Gladio advanced, swinging his blade, ripping a gash in the creature’s right side. It retaliated, lurching at him, bumping him roughly and knocking him off his feet. He tried to get up, but slipped in the mud, and the creature was on him fast, faster than Ignis had thought it could move, lurching onto his legs and pinning him, dangling its bloody tongue over him. 

As Gladio wrestled with the toad, batting its tongue away from his face, his three friends attacked the creature. Prompto fired at its back legs, Noct warped to impale its wounded side with his blade, and Ignis handsprung forward to land on the toad’s lurching back, slicing at its spine with his twin daggers. 

The toad flailed against their attacks, wriggling back from Gladio. Gladio kicked its face, then jumped to his feet, lifted his huge sword and brought it down, cleaving the toad’s skull. The monster twitched, gurgled, then slumped into the mud and went still. 

Ignis leaped lightly from its back, managing to avoid slipping in the mud. 

“Well. That fight was instructive.” Something caught in his chest, tightening his throat, and he turned his head and coughed into his elbow, glasses fogging. 

“You okay, Iggy?” Prompto asked. 

“Fine.” He cleared his throat and forced a smile. His head was spinning and throbbing, and his throat and chest ached. “Just a bit winded.”

“Yeah, me, too.” Gladio stretched and groaned. “Got a few kinks to work out.”

“Need a potion?” Noct asked. 

“Nah. Just a nap.” 

“Good work everyone,” Ignis complimented. “Interesting how large this creature is and how fast it was, unlike the others we’ve hunted of its kind.”

“Uh, guys?”

The other three looked to where Prompto was pointing at the gigantoad’s corpse. 

Something was happening to the bulging brown body. It was quivering, like some gelatinous dish in a nervous man’s hand. And it was shimmering a sickly yellow color. A high pitched sound, almost bell-like, emitted from its corpse. 

“Is that normal?” Prompto asked… rhetorically, Ignis thought.

“Most certainly not,” Ignis murmured, taking a step closer to the dead thing. He held out a hand toward Noct, who had moved with him. “Stay back, Noct.”

“Careful, Ignis,” the raven-haired royal cautioned.

“Always.” Ignis twitched a smile and took a step closer.

The toad’s body collapsed on itself, the ugly yellow light rising around it in a swirl. Then the body darkened and seemed to sink into the ground, the light dimming above it, then darkening past dim, transforming into an amorphous shadow. 

“I don’t like this,” Gladio muttered. “You should get back, Iggy.”

“I do believe you’re right.” Ignis took a step back. 

Noctis and Prompto grabbed his arms and jerked him back between them. 

The shadow formed itself into the vague silhouette of a woman, and then began to quiver with laugher. A woman’s voice rang out in cold mirth. 

“Who is that?” Noctis breathed. 

Ignis cleared his tight, aching throat. “I believe that is Selucia.”

“Selucia?” Prompto frowned. “The woman we tried to save?”

“Yes.” Ignis coughed.

The shadow faded away, leaving the four friends shaken in its wake.


	2. Stalked by Prey

**Noctis**

Another day, another hunt.

Two days had passed since Noctis and his retinue had fought and defeated the strange gigantoad. They had seen no further signs of Selucia’s shade or whatever that shadow had been, nor had they seen anything else out of the ordinary. They had rested in Coernix Station and enjoyed a couple of hot meals from the Crow’s Nest, despite Ignis’s protests that his own cooking was much healthier. 

Noctis had wanted to give Ignis a break. His advisor was looking alternatingly pale and flushed these days and seemed to have developed a cold. Ignis seemed not to want anyone to notice, so Noctis was pretending that he didn’t. 

They’d taken another contract when everyone had grown antsy. This time, they were hunting some reapertails that had begun encroaching on farmland. 

And it was raining. Again. 

Noctis glanced over his shoulder toward where the Regalia was parked, longing for its warm, dry, and stylish interior to surround him. He could take a nap in there. But no. He was gallivanting the countryside, hunting. Which was a good thing, he figured. He was helping his people, his subjects. It was his responsibility, after all. He wanted to do as much good as he could before heading to Altissia. And plus, they needed the money. Hunting was a win-win scenario for all involved…

… unless it became too dangerous to his friends. 

The spectre of Selucia had left him uneasy. He didn’t like remembering how that strange gigantoad had knocked Gladio to the ground. He didn’t like the rough sound of Ignis’s coughs, which he heard in spite of his advisor’s attempts to muffle them. In dying, the woman had spoken a curse… Could it be real? Could it be haunting them now?

“Noct?” Prompto sidled up beside him. “You okay, man?”

“Just thinking.”

“About what?”

Noctis didn’t really want to say. He shrugged. “Just this weather. It sucks.”

“Man up!” Gladio chimed in. “A little water isn’t gonna hurt ya, Prince!”

“However, it _is_ impeding our visibility,” Ignis spoke up. “I believe we are close to our destination--the rocky valley our tipster mentioned--but I can’t see much further than fifteen yards or so.”

“We should slow down, then,” Noctis suggested.

Ignis nodded. “I agree. And I think we should--”

A high-pitched whine stopped the four hunters in their tracks. The noise was animal, insectoid.

“Are they behind us again?” Prompto moaned, drawing his pistol.

“It would seem so,” Ignis sighed, then sniffed and cleared his throat. 

“Is it a little odd that we’ve been hunted by our prey twice in a row now?” Gladio muttered, swinging his greatsword. 

“Yeah…” Noctis remembered Selucia’s curse: _The hunters will be hunted_. He had a feeling it wasn’t just aggressive wildlife dogging their steps. “We’ll have to be careful, guys, and once we take these things down, we’re gonna have to do our research on curses.”

“Aw, man.” Prompto shivered. “I hate curses!”

“Listen!” Ignis hissed. “They’re close!”

By now, Noctis could hear the scuttling of many small, sharp feet, adding another beat to the percussion of the rain. 

“Get ready, guys,” Noctis said, summoning his broadsword. “Weapons out!”

They’d been contracted to hunt and destroy seven of the creatures, and the scuttling, squeaking, whining noises certainly sounded as if they came from a crowd of the things. Noctis squinted through the silver curtain of rain to see the low dark shadows twitching forward across the muddy ground. 

“Ignis? Call it.”

“Prompto, take out the ones on the edges. Gladio, move toward the center, sweeping your blade as wide as you can. Noctis, finish off the ones Prompto and Gladio wound. I’ll strike the remaining targets with my daggers, and you warp in after my strikes. On my mark…”

The line of reapertails, advancing in a strangely straight line, burst into clear view through the rain. 

“Now!” Ignis yelled.

BANG! BANG! Prompto fired rapidly, wounding the reapertails on the edges of the line. 

Gladio hollered a battle cry and launched himself forward, his mighty blade sweeping at the enemy. 

Noctis surveyed the crumbling enemy line and honed in on one of the reapertails that had dodged Gladio’s blow. He warped, knocking it onto its back, then slashing down again and again with his blade. 

“Noct!” Ignis shouted, and Noct dodged and rolled away from his quarry as one of its fellows clawed at him from behind. 

Prompto fired again, finishing off the one Noctis had dropped. Gladio’s blade swept in a wide arc, knocking two creatures onto their backs. 

Ignis slung his daggers, striking four of the vulnerable creatures, and Noct followed his moves, warping to strike each one, killing at least one of them. It was hard to tell in the chaos and the rain. He assumed Gladio’s shout of triumph and Prompto’s, “Oh yeah!” indicated that at least two more had fallen. 

Another reapertail tried to strike him from behind, but Ignis moved in to parry the blow with crossed daggers and counterattack, with Noct beside him. Between the two of them and their three blades, they sliced the creature to ribbons. 

The fight was over in minutes, leaving a pile of slices, crushed, shot, and dismembered reapertails with four victorious hunters standing over them. 

“Well done, Noct.” 

Ignis patted his shoulder. The tactician sounded breathless, and Noctis looked at him closely, noting the dark circles under his eyes, the pallor of his face. 

“You alright, Iggy?” he asked quietly while Prompto and Gladio reenacted their favorite moves from the battle.

“Just a bit under the weather.” Ignis smiled wanly. 

“You’re sure that’s all--”

Gladio’s shouted curse cut him off, and Noct spun to see what was the matter. 

Hissing laughter emitted from the reapertail corpses, shivering them, shaking them, rattling them and doing further damage to their bodies. Seven female voices joined in chorus of dark glee, and seven miniature woman shadows rose wavering from the dead creatures. 

Noctis skin felt tingly, as if a thousand little legs were creeping over it. He shuddered. 

“We need to find a way to be rid of this curse,” Ignis murmured as the seven shadows rose and faded, the reapertail bodies crumbling to dust. 

“You can say that again.” Noct rubbed his chilled arms. “How much do you know about curses, Ignis?”

“Perhaps not as much as I should, but there--” Ignis coughed into his elbow. The cough seemed to rattle in his chest. He cleared his throat, not meeting Noct’s worried eyes. “There’s always research.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hmm... Ignis's "cold" sure is getting worse...


	3. Escalation

**Ignis**

The hotel room was dark and quiet. The others slept peacefully, with an occasional snore from Gladio. 

Ignis laid awake, staring at the ceiling, trying his hardest not to cough. Noct, Prompto, and Gladio needed sleep. It wouldn’t do to disturb them. He caught the cough in his throat, swallowed hard, massaged his upper chest where a deep ache had settled. He finally sat up and crept across the room, pressing a fist to his ribs. He made it to the door without loosing the terrible cough that threatened to rattle free and shake his bones and blast the room with noise.

He slipped out the door, closing it quietly behind him, and hurried across the parking lot to a stand of bushes. Finally, away from the hotel room, alone in the night, he let loose the cough. It emerged roughly, seeming to tear through his lungs and throat, shaking his torso. His lungs burned with it, and he wrapped his arms around himself, gasping between horrible hacks. He felt as if something was stuck in his throat, his lungs, and he just couldn’t force it out. Finally, the coughing ceased, and he slumped, panting and sore. 

“You okay, mister?” 

Ignis straightened and spun around to see an elderly man strolling by toward the hotel. 

“Fine. Just… a little cough.”

“Didn’t sound little. Maybe you should--”

“I’m fine, thank you,” Ignis cut him off curtly.

The man shrugged. “Whatever.”

Ignis winced at his own rudeness as the man continued toward the hotel, but he almost didn’t have the strength for politeness, let alone small talk. He cleared his throat and tested his lungs with a few gulps of air, air that came rougher and smaller than he would have wished, but at least it came without a cough. 

Sighing, wiping cold sweat from his brow, he turned back toward the hotel. 

THE NEXT MORNING

When Ignis sat up from the bed, a vicious pain shot through his back. He muffled a groan and reached back, massaging the sore place on his right rib cage. Had he pulled a muscle fighting the reapertails? Coughing?

The sound of running water drew his attention. Was someone up before him? That was unusual. Normally, he was the first to awaken in order to cook breakfast for everyone else. He looked around to see that the beds were empty of everyone but him. Someone else had straightened up, which was usually his job. 

“Noct?” he called softly. His voice was annoyingly hoarse. “Promtpo? Gladio?”

No one answered. 

The sound of rushing water shut off.

Ignis stood. The room spun aggravatingly, and he reached to steady himself against the bedstead. “Noct?”

“Iggy?” Noct’s voice echoed from the bathroom. “You finally up?”

“Yes. It would seem I have slept longer than usual.” He closed his eyes, breathing steadily through the pain in his back, the lightness in his head. 

“Yeah, man. You looked tired, so we didn’t wake you. Prompto and Gladio went for breakfast.”

“Useful of them,” Ignis muttered. His breath rattled in his chest, and he cleared his throat, reaching to massage his back.

“I’ll be right out and you can shower. Hang on.”

Ignis sat back down on the edge of the bed, trying to steady himself, willing the room to stop spinning. Why wouldn’t it stop?

The bathroom door swung open, and Noctis stepped out, dress in his dark attire, toweling his wet hair. “You okay, Specs?”

“I’ll be fine,” Ignis rasped.

Frowning, Noctis moved to his advisor’s side, sitting on the bed beside him. “You look pale. You’re getting sick, aren’t you?”

“Just a cold. It’s this infernal weather.”

Noctis’s blue eyes were wide with worry. “I didn’t want to bring this up, but… You’ve been coughing and hacking for days now, and didn’t Selucia say something about you breathing hard or something?”

Ignis waved a dismissing hand. “All part of her rather theatrical curse.”

“You can’t deny that something weird is going on with our hunts. And now you’re getting sick.”

“I’m fine,” Ignis snapped.

Noctis flinched, and Ignis sighed, stomach twisting. 

“I’m fine,” he said more gently.

“You don’t sound fine. Take a hot shower. The steam can help clear your sinuses,” Noct suggested.

Ignis smiled crookedly. “Where did you learn that?”

“Where I learn most important things.” Noctis grinned. “From you.”

**Noctis**

Noct was growing bored. Prompto and Gladio had been gone forever, and Ignis had been in the shower forever. Noctis had been left with the task of making the beds, and that had taken about five seconds. He sprawled on the couch, playing games on his phone and jiggling his foot, wondering what was taking the other guys so long. He hoped Prompto and Gladio hadn’t run into trouble. He hoped Ignis would feel better after his shower.

“Hey, Iggy!” Noctis called. 

No answer. 

“Iggy?”

Noctis got up fast and hurried to the bathroom door. He knocked. “Ignis?”

His response was a thick, wet cough. 

“Need any help, Specs?”

“I’m fine,” Ignis gasped out in a voice that didn’t sound fine at all. 

Noctis was half tempted to break down the door and haul Ignis out and drag his butt to a doctor. “Okay. Let me know if you need anything.”

“Of course,” Ignis wheezed.

Which didn’t soothe Noctis’s nerves at all. 

And neither did the door bursting open and Gladio rushing in and growling, “We need to move.”

“What’s going on?” Noctis asked.

“Something followed me and Prompto all morning. We hated to lead it back here, but we had to make sure you and Ignis were alright. It’s still after us. We have to move.”

Noctis grabbed his jacket and shrugged it on. “The curse?”

Gladio grunted. “Probably. Let’s move. Prompto’s in the car.”

“Ignis!” Noct called. “You hear that? We need to go.”

The bathroom door opened, revealing Ignis hunched over and buttoning up his shirt. His face was stark white. 

“We need to get to a library,” the tactician wheezed. He coughed hard against the back of his hand, his torso jolting with each harsh exhale. “We have to find out how to stop this curse.”

**Prompto**

Prompto was waiting in the running car, pistol in his lap, blue eyes scanning all horizons for signs of the whispering, shadowy thing that had chased him and Gladio through the streets. Gladio had turned to fight it, but his sword had gone through the huge gray shadow as if it were a mist, then the thing had disappeared. 

It was the curse. _And it could be stalking me this very moment._

A noise from behind him, a soft footfall.

Prompto spun, ready to raise his pistol… but it was only an old man shuffling across the parking lot toward an ancient car. The blond sharpshooter sighed and settled back into the passenger seat. 

Finally, after what felt like hours of waiting, Gladio, Noctis, and Ignis came rushing out of the hotel room.

“Come on, guys! Hurry up!” Prompto urged. 

“Do you see it?” Gladio barked, hauling Noct into the back seat with him. 

“Not yet and hopefully never again!” Prompto shivered. 

Ignis plopped into the driver’s seat, distinctly lacking in his usual grace.

“Iggy, you okay to drive?” Noct called softly from the back. 

“I’ll be fine.” The strategist’s voice was subdued and a little hoarse. “The nearest library is four miles away. I can get us there as fast as you like.”

“Gun it,” Noct ordered.

Ignis steered the Regalia out onto the road faster than he usually did. There was an urgency in his movements and his driving. 

Prompto cast him a worried glance, then looked back at Noctis, seeing his own anxiety mirrored in his friend’s eyes. 

“You okay, Iggy?” he asked tentatively.

“I’ll be better once we’ve lifted the curse,” Ignis responded, not looking at him, eyes fixed on the road.


	4. In the Library

**Gladio**

Gladio liked books. Hell, he loved them. Reading was a great exercise for the mind, and if you weren’t exercising your body, you might as well be exercising your mind. Gladio was a big fan of both. He liked the adventure he found in books, the escape, and the knowledge. But these books they had piled up in a dark corner of an ancient library were almost too much for him. They were filled with drawings of monsters he’d never seen--none of them had--and lists of demonic beings long extinct (hopefully). They told of dark spells and magic, of curses ancient and evil, things that made Gladio nervous and should make any sane person nervous.

“Anything about laughing shadows, hunters being hunted, or lung problems yet?” Noct called out from behind the nearest shelf.

“Nope!” Prompto yelled in response.

“No,” came Ignis’s quiet reply.

“Not yet,” Gladio said, slamming his current book shut. He swore. Surely, this Selucia woman hadn’t been such a powerful witch that she’d created her own curses. Surely, she had borrowed something from someone else, from the past, from something in one of these books. Every poison had an antidote, so every curse had an antidote, too, right?

He picked up the next book and slumped in the chair, opening the leather-bound tome on his lap, wincing at the grotesque illustrations of creatures with floating eyeballs, curving talons, slimy faces, and organs on the outsides of their bodies. This was some sort of ancient bestiary. He tossed it aside and picked up the next one. 

_Dark Magic of the Wastelands_.

This one sounded more promising. 

**Ignis**

His back ached as Ignis bent over to pick up a book from a bottom shelf. He grimaced, hoisting up the thick volume, his breath catching on something in his lungs. His next inhale rattled, then caught again, and he coughed. 

“You okay, Iggy?” Noctis called. 

“Fine,” he choked out. But he wasn’t, and he knew it. He hurried to where Gladio was seated nearby and passed him the book. “This one might be useful.”

“Stick it on top of my stack,” Gladio told him absently, frowning down into the book on his lap.

Ignis dropped the book onto Gladio’s stack, rather harder than he had meant to. His hands felt shaky. He hoped Gladio hadn’t noticed. He didn’t seem to have. The shield appeared entirely focused on his current book.

“Found something useful?” Ignis inquired.

“Uh-huh.”

“Care to elaborate?”

“In a second.”

“Alright.” Shivering with a chill, Ignis turned from Gladio and made his way around one of the nearby shelves to where Noctis stood tapping his chin and surveying a row of books. “I think Gladio might have found something important.”

Noct glanced at him. “What?”

“He didn’t say. He’s still--” He coughed into his elbow. “Still reading it.”

“Hey, why don’t you take a break and sit down,” Noct suggested.

“No time. If we’re being stalked by a curse, there’s no--” A particularly painful cough ripped from his chest. “No time.”

Somewhere far away in the cavernous old library, a book dropped. The noise of it echoed through the dusty shelves and stacks. 

“Ignis… Was anyone else in the library with us?” Noctis asked, looking toward the source of the sound. 

“Just the librarian,” Ignis wheezed. He rubbed his right side. It was aching now, too. 

“Did you hear the door open?” Noctis wondered. 

“No.” Ignis’s stomach twisted. “My guess is that our shadowy friend has found us. We need to tell Gladio and Prompto.”

Another book dropped, then another, in staccato bursts of sound that echoed ominously. Deliberately.

Ignis and Noctis hurried to where Gladio was still peering down at his book. 

“Something’s in the library with us,” Noct told him. “Where’s Prompto?”

Gladio looked up from his book. “Huh?”

“Prompto--where is he?” Ignis hissed.

“He went to the bathroom.” Gladio frowned, sitting up straighter and looking around. “He’s not back yet?”

“No, and there’s someone in here with us!” Noctis whispered. 

Another book slammed to the ground, closer now. 

“I found out something about the curse.” Gladio stood, gripping the book. “It’s gonna take some work, but we can break it. We need this book--and Prompto. We all have to be there.”

“Let’s get Prompto and get out of here, then!” Noctis decided

**Prompto**

Prompto moved quieter than he had ever moved in his life, creeping along the rows of bookshelves, following the gray, shimmery shadow that traced a tendril of itself along the books’ spines, careless, knocking one down now and then. 

_It’s trying to scare us_, Prompto thought. _It wants us scared_. 

The gray shadow stopped, hovering and pulsing in the middle of an aisle, and Prompto ducked behind a shelf, his heart slamming against the walls of his chest. He bit his lip to keep from gasping or moaning in fear. 

BAM!

Another book had fallen, tossed down by the creature.

The curse. 

“Prompto!” Noct’s voice whisper-called.

A raspy hissing sound emitted from the shadow. 

_Quiet, Noct!_ Prompto clenched his teeth.

Silence in the library.

Prompto had even stilled his breath, afraid the shadow creature could sense it. His hands trembled, but he summoned his pistol and gripped it with both of them, wondering if bullets would even damage the thing. Would magic? Surely one of the other guys had brought a magic flask. Maybe magic could damage a curse-summoned shadow…

_SSsssssttt..._

Something slithered closer to Prompto, tracing its way along the books on the shelf behind which he was hiding. 

If it was corporeal enough to touch books, to knock them down, then surely a bullet could do some damage…

_SSSSssssstt._

Closer now, so close.

Prompto steeled himself, set his jaw, and spun out from cover, raising his pistol toward the aisle, finger curled around the trigger, ready to fire. 

The aisle was empty.

Prompto blinked, frowned. Where was the shadow? His hand trembled, the barrel of the pistol bobbing with the tremors.

A soft sound, like a breath, from above.

Prompto looked up, and darkness covered him. 

**Ignis**

The dim lights in the library flickered, then died. High shelves and heavy curtains blocked most of the sunlight from the windows. 

The library was shrouded in darkness. 

Ignis, Noctis, and Gladio had their weapons drawn as they moved quickly and quietly among the shelves, looking for Prompto.

A cough denied constricted Ignis’s lungs, but he managed to keep up with Noct and Gladio--only just. His head was spinning, too, which didn’t help. He bumped his foot against a fallen book, sending it skidding under a shelf, and he stopped, reaching to steady himself against the shelf, muffling a raspy pant against his shoulder. 

“Iggy?” Gladio’s big hand clamped down on the other shoulder. “Dude, you’re burning up.”

“Am I?” Iggy asked calmly. He pressed the back of his hand against his forehead. “I can’t tell.”

“Yeah.” Gladio repeated the gesture. “You’ve got a fever.”

“We’ve got bigger problems,” Ignis panted. “We have to keep going.”

Noct and Gladio exchanged a worried glance.

“We find Prompto, get out of the library safely with the book, break the curse, and then we can worry about my little fever,” Ignis suggested. 

Noctis sighed. “Fine. But let us know if you need our help.”

“Will do. Now--” He coughed into his sleeve, chest burning. “Let’s find Prompto.”


	5. Shadow of Danger

**Prompto**

The gray shadow surrounded Prompto, wrapping around him tight, pinning his arms to his sides and muffling his shout of alarm and warning. It didn’t feel right. Its texture felt almost silky, but slimy at the same time, like a giant spider’s web or a wet membrane of something cold and dead. 

A thick, bulbous tendril of it rose up in front of his eyes and formed itself into the semblance of a human face. The gray, shimmery face smiled, and a voice hissed through the air around it. 

“Stop breathing. _Stop breathing_.”

And Prompto did. He didn’t mean to. He tried to gasp in a mouthful of air, but the soft, thin, damp shadow webbed over his mouth, blocking any air from entering. He felt his eyes go wide in panic. He bucked against the amorphous thing that held him trapped. 

His lungs began to burn, black spots dancing across his vision. 

With all his might, he struggled against the band of shadow clamping his arms to his sides, but to no avail. 

He was trapped, and he was suffocating. 

And the shadow that engulfed him was laughing at him. 

**Noctis**

The shadow had Prompto. It had him wrapped up in its darkness from head to toe. He was struggling. He was in danger. 

Noct’s first instinct was to warp in and save him… but if he tried to warp strike the shadow creature, he could injure Prompto, too. 

_Think, Noctis, think! If you don’t use your head here, your friend could die!_

“We need a strategy,” he whispered to Ignis and Gladio, who crouched with him at the end of the aisle. “Any thoughts?”

“We can’t kill it with blades and bullets,” Gladio said, indicating the book in his hand. “But we can hurt it. We can at least try to scare it away.”

“Without hurting Prompto.” Noct bit his lip. “Iggy? Thoughts?”

Ignis leaned against the bookshelf, his face shadowed, his movements unusually stiff and slow. “Elemancy, Gladio?” he asked breathlessly.

“Yeah, it can be killed with fire, but--” Gladio winced. “We risk burning down the whole library--and ourselves with it.”

Further down the aisle, Prompto lurched. His knees folded, and he dropped down to them, head bowed. 

“We have to hurry, guys!” Noctis hissed. “If we have to burn down this library, then so be it!” He stood and summoned a flask of fire. 

“Noct, wait!” Ignis stood beside him, grabbing his arm. “I have a plan.” 

Noctis could have collapsed with relief. “Okay, Specs, what do we do?”

Ignis opened his mouth to speak, but instead of words, a cough broke free, and he turned from Noctis, covering his mouth, trying desperately to hide the violent burst of sound. 

“Noct!” Gladio growled, standing and moving closer to him. 

Still gripping Prompto with part of itself, the gray, shimmering shadow had turned toward them, tendrils of darkness leaking out of its core and spiralling through the air straight toward them. 

**Prompto**

Air! Air! Air!

It was only a little bit, but it was enough to clear Prompto’s head and soothe the wicked burn in his chest. 

The bands of darkness around him stretched and loosened, leaning away from him.

He tried to lift his arms from his sides and felt the slimy, cold, thin resistance, but it was weaker now, stretching itself out toward something else. 

Prompto looked beyond the shadow to see that its new target was his friends. 

**Ignis**

Things were happening fast, they were all in danger, and it was all his fault. Ignis kicked himself mentally. If he hadn’t coughed, if he’d been strong enough to hold it in, they could have executed his plan, successfully surprising the shadow creature long enough to snatch Prompto from its grasp, wound it, and flee the library. But now it was barrelling toward them, barrelling toward Noct, and there was no time to put together a perfect plan. 

Gladio moved fast, jumping in front of Noctis and raising his greatsword. The shield grunted as snakes of shadow slammed into the blade, pushing him back along the floor, but failing to knock him down. 

Noct swung at the tendrils of darkness, dodging strikes from more of them, and Ignis moved into the fight, staying close to Noct, slashing his daggers at the shadow creature’s flailing tentacles, dodging and ducking its counterattacks. 

“Guys, duck!” called Prompto’s wonderfully familiar voice.

Ignis dropped, dragging Noctis down with him and hoping Gladio was successful as well. 

BANG!

Prompto fired, and the shadow tendrils above Ignis and Noctis shuddered and shrieked, then went hissing back toward Prompto.

“Prompto, run!” Ignis shouted, then paid for shouting as a convulsive cough erupted in his chest, shaking his body and rendering him useless for several precious seconds. 

Noctis rolled out from under him and leaped to his feet, warping after the shadow creature as it pursued Prompto.

“Noct!” Gladio bellowed. “We have to get out of here! Into the sunlight! It’s weaker in the sunlight!” His strong, sure hand reached down and clamped around Ignis’s arm, pulling the tactician to his feet. “Come on, Iggy.”

“My thanks,” Ignis panted. 

“Save your breath for breathing,” Gladio told him, then went running after Noctis, dragging Ignis along beside him. 

**Noctis**

“Prompto! Lead it outside!” Noctis hollered, warping after the shadow.

It was fast, so fast. For a moment, he doubted that he could catch it, even warping, and the warping was beginning to wear on him. 

But finally, he caught up to it, just as Prompto was flinging himself bodily at the double doors of the library, just as the shadow creature had almost caught up to the blond sharpshooter. 

Noctis thrust his blade, then twisted it, entangling it in the threads of darkness, snaring them and yanking them back from Prompto. 

Prompto burst through the doors, and light burst into the library, so bright and sudden that Noctis flinched and turned his head. 

The shadow creature shrieked and convulsed, unwrapping itself from his blade and shrinking back from the light, melting into the darkness of the shelves in the furthest corner of the library. 

“Outside, Noct! Go!” Gladio came up behind him, pushing him with one hand and pulling Ignis along with the other. 

They rushed together into sunlight, where Prompto was waiting, taking a shooter’s stance, aiming at the doors beyond them. Noctis spun beside him, bringing up his sword. Gladio and Ignis turned as well, weapons ready. 

The doors of the library gaped on darkness and silence. 

“Did you get the book?” Ignis rasped. He hunched over, coughing violently. “Gladio, tell me you didn’t drop the book.”

“Right here.” Gladio reached into his jacket and withdrew it. 

“What book is that?” Prompto wondered, not looking away from the library doors. 

“It’s all about curses--and how to break them,” Gladio announced. 

“We need to get to somewhere safe and give it a try,” Noctis decided. 

“Where’s safe?” Prompto wondered. 

“Not here,” Noctis told him. “Not anymore.” He touched Prompto’s arm, and the gunner flinched. “You okay, buddy?”

“Yeah,” Prompto wheezed. “Yeah.”

“Did the shadow creature injure you?” Ignis asked. 

“Just sorta… cut off my air for a while. I’m fine. Fine. I’m fine.” Prompto’s voice pitched high and breathless. 

“We could all use a break right now,” Noctis said, glancing worriedly from Prompto to Ignis and back again. 

“We don’t have time,” Gladio said grimly. “We need to break this curse now.”

“Then let’s go.” Noctis started toward the car.

“Where?” Prompto wondered, finally ungluing his eyes from the library. 

“The Regalia for now. Iggy, you okay to drive?”

“For now,” Ignis said softly.

_For now..._

The words sounded ominous. Noct met Iggy’s eyes and saw a look of resignation there.


	6. A Worsening Condition

**Ignis**

Gladio’s reading had led him to think that a haven would be the safest place for them, so Ignis had driven them to Pullmoor Haven. The sun was beginning to set now, but the glowing symbols carved into the rock gave Ignis some small measure of comfort. He sat quietly in his camp chair, listening as Gladio read aloud from his book about curses, absorbing the information, working it over in his mind, trying not to think about how terrible his whole body felt--chest and back aching, lungs rattling with every breath, coughs threatening to shake him to pieces without producing any mucus, head pounding and spinning, chills shivering through his bones. 

“So let me get this straight,” Noctis said, pacing. “We go back to where Selucia died, we confront the shadow at the break of dawn, we burn it with fire, and we bury the ashes at the spot. That doesn’t sound too hard.”

“No, but time is of the essence here,” Ignis reminded him. “Every dawn we miss intensifies the curse and the danger, according to what Gladio has been reading. We’ve already missed one. We can’t afford to miss another.”

_Or I’m probably dead_. He wasn’t sure if his friends were missing the clues that added up to that rather bothersome fact or if they had all reached the same conclusion and just didn’t want to say it out loud. 

He was suffering from more than just a simple cold. His body was being devoured by a rapidly advancing case of pneumonia or something like it. With every hour, his fever spiked higher. With every minute, more fluid filled his lungs. He might last another couple of days, but no more than that. It irked him that, by dawn, when Noct, Gladio, and Prompto would need him most, he would be next to useless… next to dead, if not already there. 

How had they not realized that?

“So it has to be tomorrow morning, then.” Noctis sighed heavily and plopped down into the camp chair next to Ignis. “We rest tonight and go hunting shadows tomorrow.”

**Noctis**

They had a plan--at least a semblance of one. They also had a thrown-together backup plan in case the first plan didn’t work. 

Everything was going to be fine. Everything was always fine… wasn’t it?

The return of heavy rainfall dampened Noctis’s confidence--and everything else. They scrambled to pack everything into containers or shove it into the Regalia or the tent, then they scrambled into the tent themselves, drying off, Prompto singing a little ditty about rain, Gladio muttering under his breath, and Ignis almost preternaturally quiet. 

Noctis scooted closer to Ignis while Gladio and Prompto playfully argued over who got the most space for his sleeping bag.

“What’s up, Iggy?”

“Concentrating,” Ignis answered, his voice clipped.

“On what?”

“Breathing.”

“Bad, huh?”

Ignis nodded as he neatly arranged his bedroll. 

“We’ve got some leftovers we can heat up quick and easy for dinner, so don’t worry about cooking anything.”

“Very good, Noct.” Ignis sat with his knees drawn up to his chest. He looked alien in that position, like someone other than Ignis, like someone younger and more vulnerable. He started to cough again, crossing his arms over his knees and burying his face in his arms. 

“Easy, buddy,” Noct soothed, patting his friend’s back. He frowned at the heat radiating through Ignis’s clothes and kept a worried hand there. His frown deepened at the rattling he felt reverberating through Ignis’s lungs. “Rest tonight, okay, Specs?”

Ignis nodded wordlessly, lifting his head, his face gaunt and pale, with red spots along his cheekbones. His eyes were glassy behind his glasses. 

“Need a potion?”

“It wouldn’t help.”

“You sure?”

“I’m sure.” Ignis turned his face away and groaned, rubbing at his chest. 

“Anything I can do?”

“Look out for the others--and yourself,” Ignis said softly.

“Alright.” Noctis hesitated, feeling useless… and like he was missing something. “Get some rest, buddy.”

Ignis turned away from him and laid down on the pallet, on his left side, coughing a cough that quaked his whole body. 

“That sounds rough, Iggy!” Prompto called across the tent. “Guess you won’t be joining our card game tonight?”

“No thanks,” Ignis managed between gasps for breath.

“Rest up, man,” Prompto said. He looked up, meeting Noct’s eyes with a worried, questioning look. 

Noct shrugged, not wanting to scare him too much. 

**Gladio**

After Iggy, Prompto was the next guy to fall asleep, tired and worn from his battle with the shadow in the library. He practically passed out after the third card game, sprawled across his bedroll, mouth lolling open. 

Gladio tucked him in, then moved closer to Noct, who was frowning down at Ignis and biting his thumbnail. 

“Noct.”

“Uh-huh?”

“You know it’s the curse.”

Noctis turned sharply to look at him, and in the soft glow of the lantern, Gladio saw that Noct had been considering this very thing. 

“If this were just pneumonia, it would be dangerous enough, but it’s not. No medicine or rest is going to cure it. It comes from the curse.”

“Are you sure?” Noct’s voice was small, barely above a whisper.

Gladio nodded grimly. “I’m sure. It’s in the book.”

“You didn’t read that part out loud to us.”

“Didn’t want to scare ya.”

“Well I’m scared now.”

Thunder boomed, lightning flashing in tandem, glowing through the tent. 

“Me, too,” Gladio admitted, fixing his gaze on Ignis’s flushed face. The sound of the strategist’s breathing was awful, painful. “We have to win tomorrow.”

“He’s in no shape to fight.”

“I know.”

“How can we win without him?”

Gladio grabbed Noct’s shoulder and gave him a shake. “This is no time to panic. We don’t have room for doubt. We will win tomorrow, then Ignis will be fine.”

In his sleep, Ignis moaned, as if contradicting Gladio’s words. 

Noctis sighed. “At least we have to try.”

“We’ll succeed,” Gladio hoped. “Now get some rest, prince.”

**Ignis**

He was drifting, floating, rocked by thunder and rain. He opened his eyes to see a face glowing down at him, blue and beautiful and unfamiliar. 

“Ignis.”

“I’m dreaming,” he muttered, then coughed harshly, pain stabbing through his ribs. Was he sick even in his dreams?

The blue glowing woman smiled. “Ignis, get up.”

He was too heavy to move, weighed down by the fluid filling his lungs, weighed down by the pain racking his body. “No,” he groaned, shaking his head. 

“Ignis.” Her smile faded. “Get up!”

Clenching his teeth, he forced himself to sit up, nausea roiling in his gut as the tent shifted and rolled around him. Had the tent been displaced, moved to the deck of a ship at sea in this gods-forsaken storm?

“Ignis.” Lightning flashed, and the face changed to that of someone familiar, just out of reach of his fevered brain. “Go to your friends. Go now.”

“This is a terribly odd dream,” he rasped, massaging his aching side. 

“Ignis!” The face shone blue and unknowable again. “Go now!”

Lightning’s flare, then blackness, and the face was gone.

“My friends,” Ignis murmured, reaching to hold his dizzy head between his hands. His temples ached with each pound of his rapid pulse. His own skin felt strange under his fingers, hot and cold at once, every pore tingling. He got up to his knees and crawled, losing his way in the dark, staggering to one elbow, dragging himself up again, groaning as the tent spun madly. He gasped, then regretted the gasp as it caught deep in his chest, spasming. 

Choking down a cough, he reached out, touched a foot, tugged on it, crawled dazedly toward the body attached to it. 

“Friends… Supposed to go to you… She said to… Go to you,” he gasped out before doubling over with a lung-shattering cough.

**Prompto**

Prompto kicked at whatever was pulling on his foot, then awoke further and realized where he was. Fear shunted through him. Had the shadow caught up with them? Was it in the tent, grabbing his foot? He sat up fast, then frowned to see Ignis kneeling by his legs, hunched over, hugging himself, panting raggedly. 

“Ignis?”

Ignis looked up at him, spectacle-less eyes watery and dazed in the dim light of the lantern by Prompto’s head. 

“Hey, man, you okay?”

“She said… Said… Friends,” Ignis gasped out, then moaned and bowed his head, hugging himself tighter. 

The rattling sound of his breath sent fear flying back to Prompto’s heart. The little blond gunner scrambled up to his hands and knees and crawled to Ignis’s side. 

“Iggy? Are you awake, man?” He touched Ignis’s shoulder. 

Ignis coughed wretchedly, then moaned out a sound that was almost a sob, leaning toward Prompto.

“Hey, buddy…” Instinctively, Prompto touched his friend’s face, flinching at the heat of the other man’s skin. He swore. “Iggy, that’s a bad fever you’ve got there. Hey, can you hear me?” He snapped his fingers in front of Ignis’s face. 

Ignis stared dazedly ahead, shivering, breathing with awful desperation. 

“Iggy!?” Panic sharpened Prompto’s focus, and he took Ignis’s face between his hands. “Iggy, look at me, man!”

Ignis’s eyes obeyed slowly, tracking up to Prompto’s. His skin was burning hot, lit by some raging fire within his body. His pupils were blown wide, eyes damp and glazed. 

Then he blinked a couple of times, frowning. “Prom--Prompto?”

“Yeah, man. You dreaming or something?”

“I need--ah!” Ignis winced, squeezing his eyes shut, his body spasming. He grabbed onto Prompto’s arms with sudden, desperate strength, opening his feverish eyes again. “I need help. Prompto.” He gasped, his chest rattling wetly. “Help me.” Then he slumped forward, falling against his friend, totally limp.

Prompto caught him, held him tight against him and cried, “Noct! Gladio! Help! Ignis--He needs help!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The events in this chapter are partially based on the true story of the time I came down with a bizarre case of pneumonia the summer I was sixteen. Fortunately for me, no curse or dark magic was involved, and my mom was able to administer first aid until I could get to a doctor.


	7. To Keep a Friend Alive

**Noctis**

Prompto’s cry in the night awoke Noct from a rather peaceful dream about fishing with his father and Lunafreya. The panicked sound stripped him from sunlight and gentle river sounds into dim lantern light and the tumult of a storm. 

“Prompto?” He sat up, rubbing his eyes. “What is it?”

“Noct! It’s Ignis!” 

As his vision adjusted to dim wakefulness, Noct saw Prompto cradling Ignis against him. Ignis was utterly pale, utterly limp, head tilted back, mouth open and gasping, chest shuddering up and down with quick, rasping breaths. Gladio was already there, hovering by Ignis’s head, mouth set in a grim line. 

Noct scrambled across the tent and grabbed one of Ignis’s hands, reaching with his other hand to turn up the lantern light and switch on a flashlight. As more light flooded the small space of the tent, he could now fully appreciate the pallor of Ignis’s skin, the blue of it behind his fingernails and around his mouth. 

“He’s burning up,” Prompto said, sounding close to tears. “He woke me up, going on about something that didn’t make sense. I don’t know what to do. What do we do?”

“Get his fever down if we can,” Gladio spoke up. “Here.” He took Ignis from Prompto’s arms. “Get some cloth and cool water, ice if we have any left.”

..._if we can_…

Noct froze, wondering if there was anything they could do to stave off the illness raging through Ignis’s body. If it was part of the curse, there was a chance it would only get worse until the curse was broken. 

“Noct, here!” Prompto shoved an ice pack into the Lucian royal’s hands and turned to continue scrounging through their supplies. 

Swallowing the lump in his throat, Noctis scooted forward and gently touched Ignis’s face. The other man’s skin was blazing with heat. Noct winced and held out the ice pack, placing it against Ignis’s forehead. As soon as it touched Ignis’s skin, the tactician’s eyebrows rose a little, and the tight lines around his mouth slackened. 

“That’s good,” Gladio rumbled. “A little ice is already helping. But we’re gonna need a lot. His temperature is dangerously high.” He set Ignis down on the nearest bedroll and unbuttoned the front of his shirt.

That made it worse, somehow, Noctis thought, seeing the desperate jerk of his ribcage under his pale skin as his lungs struggled to drag in air. 

“Ignis…” Noct murmured, squeezing his friend’s hand. 

To his surprise, Ignis squeezed back, faintly, and turned his head toward him. 

“Noct?” he rasped between sharp gasps for breath.

“I’m here,” Noctis assured him. 

“You must… break the curse,” Ignis panted, eyelids fluttering open to reveal glassy eyes. “Have to go… without me on this one.” His face twisted, and his body convulsed as he coughed violently, choking as he tried to draw in air.

Gladio lifted him to a sitting position. “We’ve got you, Iggy.” He rubbed large circles on the other man’s back. 

Ignis winced and clutched at his chest, a whimper of pain escaping him between ragged coughs. 

“Is this part of the curse?” Noctis asked Gladio, reaching to help support Ignis and keep the ice pack pressed to his forehead. 

“Probably.” Gladio nodded. 

“I was--” cough “--getting sick before,” Ignis managed. “Think the curse--” groan “--made it worse.”

“Sorry we didn’t notice, buddy,” Noctis told him, his stomach twisting with guilt.

“Not… your problem.” Ignis closed his eyes and slumped against Gladio, breaths coming in short little jerks. “Should have taken a potion when I had the chance.”

“Here. Maybe this will help.” Prompto scooted up beside him, carrying an armful of wet cloths and ice packs. 

Gladio propped Ignis up on bedrolls and pillows, and Prompto and Noctis covered his chest with cold cloths, sticking ice packs under his arms and against his sides.

Ignis shivered. “Cold.”

“Sorry, pal. Need to get that fever down,” Gladio told him. 

“Could be…” Ignis turned his head and coughed into his hand, his ribs jolting violently with each hack of breath. “Wasted effort.”

Noctis went cold to his very bones. He shook his head. “No. It’s not. We’re going to get you better.”

“Only once the curse is broken,” Ignis breathed.

“We’re breaking it at dawn.” Noctis clasped his advisor’s shoulder firmly. “You just have to last until then.”

Ignis almost smiled at that, pale lips curving, outlined in frightening blue. “I’ll do my best.”

**Gladio**

Ignis had definitely done his best. Of course he had. He was a man of his word, and his word meant something even more binding when he spoke it to Noct, his liege and his friend. 

They had finally gotten Iggy’s temperature down sometime around midnight. He still had a fever, but it wasn’t ridiculous and dangerous like it had been. Gladio figured it would spike again if they didn’t break the curse fast enough. And next time, they might not be so lucky in getting it down fast. 

Iggy’s breathing hadn’t gotten better. In fact, it sounded worse, almost like he was choking on every other breath, trying to breathe through water. And it hurt him to breathe. Gladio could tell, and he didn’t like that; it made him angry, angry at the witch who had cursed them. They’d tried to help her, and now her curse was trying to kill them for not being fast enough. It was cruel and unfair, and Ignis was hurting and struggling to breathe and maybe dying. 

It took all of Gladio’s self control to keep him from punching something. 

He channeled his anger into energy, using it to stay awake tending Ignis after Noctis and Prompto fell asleep, slumping to the floor of the tent near Ignis. Gladio planned to wake them up a couple of hours before dawn to prepare for their mission to break the curse. 

Ignis awoke around the planned wake-up time, rolling onto his side, eyes flying open, wide and panicked, as he coughed violently, his chest and back spasming, stomach heaving. 

“Easy, buddy, easy.” Gladio moved behind him, grabbing his shoulder with one hand and patting hard on his back with the other. “Just get it out. Get it out.”

Ignis grabbed for a nearby wad of tissues and coughed and heaved into it. 

“This helping?” Gladio wondered, continuing to pound on his friend’s back. He remembered his dad doing that for him when he was little, sick with some virus that clogged up his lungs.

Ignis nodded, shuddering as the coughing eased. He pulled back the tissues with a look of disgust. 

Red. There was red in the mucus Ignis had coughed up. Blood.The sickness was tearing up his lungs. 

Rage and righteous indignation blurred Gladio’s vision for a moment, and he could hear an ominous ringing in his ears. 

“Thank you,” Ignis panted, softly, politely. “Thank you.”

That calm, reasonable voice brought Gladio down from his insatiable rage. He took a deep breath and released it slowly, patting Iggy’s back more gently now. 

“Nearly dawn?” Ignis croaked.

Gladio nodded. “Nearly dawn.”

**Prompto**

The Regalia rolled along the hilly, curvy road with Noctis Lucis Caelum at the wheel.

Prompto sat in the passenger seat beside him, arms crossed, jiggling on knee up and down in an attempt to contain the nervous energy that threatened to bubble up and over and consume him. He glanced back at the back seat to see that Ignis was the same as he had been since Prompto had awakened--unconscious, breathing in loud, awful, raggedy gasps. His lips looked almost blue. He was draped across Gladio’s lap, and Gladio was frowning intensely down at his face, as if willing him to take each painful, terrible breath. 

“We’re almost there,” Noct said for about the fifteenth time. “Almost there!”

Prompto nodded, fidgeting with his gloves, itching for a revolver for both hands, aimed at the creepy shadow. 

Would killing the curse creature heal Ignis instantly? He hoped so, but if not, they were prepared with potions and other medicines and ice packs and things, all packed in the trunk and ready to use the moment the curse was gone. 

And now they really were almost there. He could see the parking spot up in the distance in the gray pre-dawn light. He chewed on his lower lip as Noct parked the car, and he was the first to bounce out of it. 

He drew his revolver and spun the chamber. “We’re what, a couple hundred yards from the spot?”

“Yeah,” Noct confirmed, frowning. “Should we wake Ignis up?”

“Nah. I’ll carry him.” Gladio slide out of the car and dragged Ignis along with him, heaving the thinner man up into his arms. 

“How can you fight while you’re carrying him?” Noctis wondered.

“I’ll manage.” Gladio grunted, shifting Ignis in his arms. “I’m carrying him.”

“Right.” Noctis nodded, and Prompto could tell he was acting calmer than he felt. “Let’s go. Prompto, you’re on point.”

“I’m on it.” With one last, anxious glance at Ignis, Prompto took the lead down the trail that led to the forest where they had failed to save Selucia. Prompto would have felt sorry for her… except for the fact that, instead of being grateful they had tried to save her and had, in fact, avenged her, she had cursed them for not getting there fast enough. 

_We tried, lady. I’m sorry, but we tried. We almost got there in time. We couldn’t save you, and I’m sorry, but you didn’t have to do this. This is wrong. We’re good guys. Ignis is a really good guy._

He kept up the strange litany to Selucia as he jogged along the trail in the dawning light, his eyes scanning the horizon for any threat, for any sign of the curse.


	8. Battling a Curse

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay, friends! First, a horrible sinus infection slowed me down, making me wonder if I'd offended any powerful witches lately, ha, and then it was my birthday, and all kinds of fun celebrations commenced. Finally, life has leveled out, so here is the next chapter!

**Noctis**

They had reached the forest clearing where Selucia had cursed them as she died. The whole way down the trail, Noctis had heard something following them--something or somethings. Footsteps, snapping twigs, splashes in the mud. 

Once again, the hunters were being hunted, stalked by a deadly curse. 

Panting, Gladio set Ignis down on the forest floor, leaning the unconscious man against a sturdy tree. Ignis was breathing in terrible little gasps, his body jerking with each desperate inhale. His face was drawn and pale, tinged blue around his mouth. He looked starkly vulnerable without his glasses, his shirt unbuttoned to reveal a chest wrapped in cooling bandages soaked with herbs to help soothe his nose and throat. 

“This had better work,” Gladio growled as he stood close to Noct, staring down at Ignis. 

“Guys, I think we’re surrounded,” Prompto said, jogging to join them, his pistol drawn, his face determined. 

“Let’s get ready, then.” Noctis glanced toward the horizon to see the light slipping over it and spilling outward. 

Dawn.

Noctis summoned his blade. 

“Shadow creature!” he shouted. “Come on out and fight us!”

His challenge was answered by a series of hisses, yips, howls, and growls. He spun, watching, his heart beating faster, as myriad monsters emerged from the forest into the clearing--two hundlegs, two reapertails, a gigantoad, and three vortooths. Their usual prey was here to hunt them. And where was the shadow?

“Their eyes,” Prompto murmured. “There’s something wrong with their eyes.”

Noct saw that his friend was right. Each animal’s eyes were glazed over, milky white, like opals, wet with shadows. 

“It’s in them,” Noctis realized. “It’s in all of them, the shadow.”

Gladio swung his huge blade up in front of him. “Then we take them all out.”

“Will our weapons hurt them?” Prompto wonder.

“They should. But only fire will truly destroy them,” Gladio told him.

“So here’s the plan,” Noctis said, wishing Ignis was well enough to talk strategy instead of him. “We beat them down with gun and blades, then we blast them with our fire flasks.”

“Okay. So we just… go in guns blazing?” Prompto asked, running in place, full to bursting with nervous energy.

_Ignis, I need you!_ Noctis looked to where his friend sat slumped against the tree, unconscious and pale, fighting for every breath he drew. What would Ignis do?

The pieces clicked together in his brain as the monsters began to tighten their circle, advancing into the clearing. 

“Prompto, go for the reapertails. Try to break off their stingers. Gladio, stay close to Ignis. Swing at anything that gets close. I’ll warp behind them, hit their blindspots, and drive them toward you.”

“Oh, yeah!” Prompto pumped the air with his fist.

Gladio nodded. “Got it.”

And the fight began.

**Gladio**

Dodging the pounce of a vortooth, Prompto fired, BANG, BANG, and snapped off one of the reapertail’s stingers.

Noct was a blue streak of lightning, striking behind their enemies, slicing at the backs of their legs. 

One of the hundlegs surged forward, trying to escape Noct’s blows, scuttling straight toward Gladio, who was waiting eagerly. 

The creature saw him too late. 

His blade swept through the air, a hurricane of steel, slicing bits and legs off the hundlegs, sending it sprawling in the mud. 

Noct came warping in to finish off the wounded creature. As he pinned it to the ground with its blade, it shuddered, shimmered gray, then sank into the ground to vanish, a sinuous shadow rising out of it and twisting up into the sky to hover over the clearing. 

The gigantoad came charging at Noct, and Gladio stepped forward, pushing Noct aside and sweeping up his blade, knocking the toad over on its back. Noct flipped forward, attacking it, while somewhere off to Gladio’s left, Prompto was still firing at the scrambling reapertails. 

The other vortooths… Where were they?

Gladio turned just in time to see one of the slinky creatures leaping at him. He raised his sword, and his attacker bounced off the blade, sprawling in the mud. He gave a wordless battle cry and leaped after it, slicing downward, cutting off the tip of its tail. As he was striking again, one of its fellows leaped at him, slashing his arm. 

“Gladio! Duck!” Prompto yelled, and Gladio dropped to the ground. 

BANG! 

One of the vortooths fell dead beside him. Its body shimmered with gray mist, then vanished as the shadow tendril rose out of it to join the first one in the air, hovering over the clearing. 

“Weird, dude!” Prompto exclaimed. 

Gladio leaped to his feet, bringing his sword up to block another vortooth charge. He looked to see that Prompto was struggling with the remaining reapertail, which seemed bent on avenging its counterpart, while Noctis was still rolling, ducking, and dodging around the gigantoad. And Ignis…

Panic slammed through Gladio’s heart, painful and hard. 

Where was Ignis?

“Gladio, behind you!” his familiar voice rasped.

Gladio knocked the last vortooth down and turned to see a hundlegs launching itself at him. He blocked its strike, counterattacked with a thrust that staggered it, but now the vortooth was back up, snarling at him, slashing. 

And then Ignis was there, behind the hundlegs, slashing at it with his daggers. It spun on him, shrieking, and Gladio turned to finish off the last vortooth before quickly turning back to Ignis to see him drop to one knee and slash out with both daggers. 

The hundlegs fell, neatly sliced into three pieces.

“Iggy--” Gladio said, then didn’t know what else to say. He was angry that Ignis was fighting while dangerously ill. He was furious that his friend had placed himself in danger to help him. He was enraged that they were all even in this situation at all. And he was thankful, so very thankful, that Ignis had joined the fight just in time. 

Still on one knee, Ignis squinted behind Gladio and pointed. “Noct!”

Gladio spun. 

Noct was still doing battle with the gigantoad and… Had the toad grown larger?

“It’s the shadows,” Ignis said hoarsely.

Gladio saw it now. The shadows that had gathered in the air, drifted up from the dead monsters, had coiled together in a dark braid, a braid that shimmered through the air, pumping down into the toad, engorging it with dark magic, making it bigger, making it stronger. 

A loud bang and a whoop of triumph signalled Prompto’s defeat of the last reapertail. 

Gladio shouldered his sword and bellowed, “To Noct!”

**Noctis**

The gigantoad’s tongue lashed out, quicker than Noct thought it could, and caught him around the right arm, yanking him forward, trying to shake the sword out of his arm. He dismissed it, summoning it in the other hand, then slashed upward to slice through the tongue. But the toad was again preternaturally fast and intelligent. It slung him with his tongue. He flew through the air, toward a tree, and tried to warp to safety, but tired and disoriented, he hit the ground hard, mud flying around him. 

“Noct!” Prompto yelled.

His yell was followed by the concussive sound of gunshots. 

Noct staggered to his feet, slipping in the mud. He watched as Prompto fired into the toad’s slimy hide, as Gladio swung at its legs, slicing through skin… but the toad seemed largely unharmed as tendrils of shadow poured into it from above.

“Noct.” 

A hand clasped onto his shoulder, and Noctis jumped, startled.

“Ignis! What are you doing? You should be--”

“Dying?” Ignis asked, cocking an eyebrow. “There’s no time for that now. It’s time for fire.”

In spite of the battle raging not far away from him, Noctis smiled. “I’m glad you’re back in the fight, Specs.”

“As am I… though I seem to be spec-less,” Ignis pointed out. He smiled, too, but his face was still ghastly pale, his voice hoarse, his breaths quick and ragged. 

Noct summoned two flasks of fire magic. He kept one for himself and handed the other to Ignis. “Ready?”

“While the adrenaline lasts, yes,” Ignis confirmed. 

“Prompto! Gladio!” Noctis called. “Get out of there!”

Gladio glanced over his shoulder and saw what Noctis and Ignis were doing. He dodged a strike from the whiplash of a toad tongue and ran to Prompto, hauling the smaller man up into his arms and dragging him away from the toad as Prompto continued to fire over his shoulder. 

As soon as they were clear, Noctis shouted, “Now!” and he and Ignis both flung their flasks. Flames exploded around the toad and leaped up to devour it. The creature screamed and thrashed, its big body heaving mud, but unable to put out the fire. Its tongue lashing the air, it flopped onto its side, then onto its back, shadows exploding out of it. 

**Ignis**

“Is it over?” Prompto wondered as the four friends regrouped.

“Not yet,” Gladio said grimly.

Ignis glanced at him, noticing the blood trickling down the big man’s arm. “What--” His voice broke as a cough threatened to rattle its way loose. He swallowed hard, trying to ignore the pain building in his chest and throat. “What now, Gladio?”

“We’ve got a few minutes to bury the ashes before that thing resurrects. And if it comes back, it comes back stronger,” Gladio said. “Come on. All four of us were cursed, so all four of us have to have a hand with the burying.”

They started forward. Just walking was difficult, Ignis found, now that the adrenaline was wearing off. His head spun… no, the forest spun, trees bending and tilting, the ground shifting beneath his feet. He placed each step carefully, trying not to alarm his allies. His chest ached; every breath was like a knife through the ribs. His body screamed at him to stop walking, to lie down, to close his eyes, to rest… maybe to stop breathing. Breathing hurt, after all, didn’t it? He shook his head and set his jaw and kept moving. He had to help his friends break the curse that haunted them. 

The smell of burnt toad rose from the scorched circle of earth at the edge of the clearing. It did not smell as appetizing as it did when Ignis was cooking gigantoad steaks for his companions. The smell nauseated him, and he swallowed down bile as it rose in his throat. 

“Yowch!” Prompto hissed and jumped back from the scorched ground. “It’s hot!”

“Doesn’t matter. We have to bury the ashes.” Gladio pushed past the smaller man, walking into the smoke over the glowing ground. He grunted as he bent to scoop up blackened bits of dead toad. “A little hot. We’ll need some potions and bandages after this.” He strode out of the burnt circle to the spot in the clearing where Selucia had died, digging a hole with one hand, clutching the smoking ashes with the other. 

Prompto sighed. “Here goes.” He tiptoed to the toad’s smoldering, crisped corpse, reaching to scrape ashes from its toasted hide. He hurried to where Gladio knelt and dropped to his knees beside him, beginning to dig his own hole in the mud. 

“Come on, Iggy,” Noct said quietly, taking Ignis’s arm. 

They entered the charred place together. Noctis bent over first, reaching for a heap of ash that had been one of the toad’s feet. As he scooped up part of it, the gigantoad’s leg collapsed, ash drifting up on a chilly breeze.

“Ugh, gross,” Noct muttered. “Here.” He scooped up a second handful.

Dazedly, Ignis held out his hand. “Thank you.” He was glad for Noct’s thoughtfulness. If he had bent to scoop up ash himself, he probably wouldn’t have been able to straighten again. The ashes were hot, singing Ignis’s palm, but he tightened his jaw and clenched his fingers around the steaming remains. 

Together, he and Noct walked to the place where the curse had begun.


	9. Ashes

**Prompto**

Prompto’s left hand stung. He was sure it would blister. He dug faster with his right hand, peeling away mud and dirt. 

“How deep do we have to go?” he asked Gladio, who had made a sizable indention in the ground. 

“About this far,” the shield told him. He tipped the ashes from his own hand into the hole he had dug, then scooped mud and dirt back over them. He sighed. “There’s one. Three to go.”

“Two!” Prompto proclaimed, hastily ridding his hand of the hot ashes. “That is gonna leave a mark.” He covered the hole and sat back, wincing down at his reddened fingers. 

“At least you’ve got gloves on,” Gladio pointed out, holding up his own scorched palm. 

Noctis knelt on the other side of Prompto. “What now?”

“Dig a hole. Bury the ash,” Gladio told him. 

Prompto looked up at Iggy, who stood swaying beside Noct. “Specs? You up for this?”

“Of course. I just need a moment. I--” He grunted and turned away from his friends, leaning over, pressing his free hand to his chest. 

“Iggy?” Noct started to get up.

“Noct, dig!” Gladio ordered, glancing over his shoulder toward the smoldering toad corpse.

“I’ll help!” Prompto volunteered. He hopped to his feet and hurried to Ignis’s side. “Iggy? You okay, man?”

Ignis nodded, then contradicted himself by coughing hard. His whole body was racked with it. Each gasp between the coughs was laced with a groan of pain, and he twisted his fist in the fabric of his shirt, pressing it to his ribs as if to hold them together. 

“I’m here, buddy.” Prompto placed a hand against Iggy’s back. He was frightened by what he felt there--the shuddering of Ignis’s muscles, the rattling within his lungs. 

“Prompto--” A hoarse cry of pain tore loose from Ignis, and he reached out, grabbing hold of Prompto’s arm as his knees buckled.

Prompto caught Ignis as he fell and cradled him against him as they both knelt on the ground. 

“Guys!” he called, terrified as Ignis’s head fell against his shoulder, as Ignis struggled mightily to breathe, but didn’t seem able to drag in any air. 

“Iggy--”

“Keep digging, Noct!” Gladio growled. 

“Breathe, Ignis!” Prompto urged. 

Ignis’s face looked blue in the early morning light. His mouth was opened, gasping, and his torso was bucking and convulsing, fighting for air. 

Suddenly, Gladio was there, frowning down at Ignis, hovering by Prompto’s shoulder. “He has to dig.”

“Come on, man, he can’t! Not like this!” Prompto protested. “He can’t even breathe!”

“He has to dig!” Gladio insisted, glancing toward the dead toad. 

Prompto followed Gladio’s glance to see that something dark was swirling up around the burned creature. 

Ignis heaved in a horrible, wheezing breath, then whimpered, then gasped out, “He’s right. I must. I must.”

“I’m done!” Noctis announced, then came running, sliding to his knees by Prompto and Ignis. “Can you do it, Ignis?”

“I can try,” Ignis rasped. He clenched his teeth, locking some horrible sound of pain behind them. He nodded jerkily. “I can try.”

Prompto and Gladio dragged him on his knees to the spot where they had buried their own ashes, and Ignis hunched over and began to tear at the ground with his right hand, fingers shaking and tinged blue under the nails. 

Prompto patted his friend’s back and stayed close, ready to support and help however he could. “You can do this, Ignis!”

**Gladio**

It was happening. The thing was coming back to life. They had been too slow--too slow to save Selucia, and now too slow to destroy the shadow she’d left to haunt them. 

Gladio looked back to see the dead toad heaving, rising, shadows swirling around it, ash and bone reforming into a semi-living creature.

“Hurry!” Gladio bellowed as a cold, evil wind tore through the clearing, stirring his hair and clothes, chilling his bones. 

Trembling all over, panting, coughing, Ignis was still digging with one hand, clinging to the last of the ashes with his other. He was leaning hard against Prompto now, his face pale and clammy, frighteningly blue in the lips. 

Suddenly, he cried out, his left arm snapping out toward the dead toad. He kept his fingers clenched, but a trickle of ash drifted from between his knuckles to float back across the clearing on the wind and merge with the rising toad corpse. 

“Fight it!” Gladio shouted. “Fight it! We’re almost there!” He stood and turned to face their enemy, drawing his sword.

**Ignis**

Pain ripped through Ignis’s hand and arm as the ashes fought him, tried to escape, tried to tear themselves free from his hand. He poured all of his strength into that scorched, trembling hand, knuckles white as he squeezed the ashes in a vise. Still, some escaped. 

More pain exploded in his chest, clawing, biting, _stabbing_ at his lungs, stealing his breath. He could not get enough breath to scream in agony, but he was screaming inside--and desperate, desperate to breathe, desperate to fight, desperate to break this curse because it wouldn’t stop with him, no, it would go after his friends next--after Gladio, after Prompto, after _Noct_, the man he had sworn to protect.

“Hang on, Iggy!” 

It was Noct’s voice that rose above the rush of icy wind now, and Noct’s hands wrapped around his wrist, pulling it down, helping him fight against the force of Selucia’s curse.

Prompto held him up, kept him from falling. Gladio ran to meet their foe, the undead toad that shambled, half-formed, shadow-ridden, toward them. And Noct lent his strength to Ignis’s, helping him lower his left arm, covering his left hand, keeping more ash from escaping. 

His right hand jerked and trembled in the shallow hole he had managed to dig. He hoped it was deep enough. 

“Noct,” he coughed, tasting blood from his damaged lungs. “Help me.”

Noct nodded and helped him drag his hand away from the wind, helped him hover it close over the shallow indentation in the earth. 

Ignis opened his fingers. 

The ash fell into the hole.

Quickly, he covered it up, then fell back shivering, gasping, coughing, drowning against Prompto and Noctis, who caught him between them. 

**Noctis**

Gladio shouted in rage, swinging his sword. 

Ignis fell, convulsing with the fight to breathe.

Prompto cried, “Iggy!”

And the wind died with a scream.

Noctis turned his head to see the toad explode into ash and dust just as the huge blade of Gladio’s sword sliced through it.

Silence descended on the clearing… until the only sound left was the awful noise of Ignis’s short, rough breaths. 

“Ignis?” Noctis bent over his friend as Prompto shifted the strategist against him. 

Ignis stared up at the sky, gasping, chest jerking with each breath. But at least he was breathing. _At least he was breathing_. 

“Iggy, can you hear me?” Noctis asked, scrabbling for Ignis’s hand, taking it, squeezing it, terrified by how cold it was, how it was trembling. 

“Noct,” Ignis rasped out, his eyes tracking to Noct’s.

“Yeah, buddy. I’m here. We did it!”

“Noct…” Prompto’s hand came around, feeling Ignis’s forehead. “His fever doesn’t feel as bad.”

Relief rushed through Noct’s spirit, cool water on a hot day, warm campfire on a cold one.

“Breathe, Iggy,” Noctis told him. “That’s an order.”

“I’ll do… my best,” Ignis panted, smiling a little as he closed his eyes. 

Gladio came running, dropped to his knees beside Noct. “How is he?”

“Better,” Noct told him, slumping with relief. “Better.”

“Still sick, though,” Prompto said with a worried frown. 

“We can deal with sick,” Gladio replied. “Sick is easier than cursed.”

“Let’s go deal with it, then.” Noctis stood on shaky legs. 

Gladio stood, too, bending to help Ignis up, to test him on his feet. The tactician fell against the shield, but he kept his feet. Gladio slid a firm arm around his waist, and Ignis murmured a faint, “Thank you, Gladio.”

Noctis reached to help Prompto up, and both of them winced, grunted, then laughed when they realized they’d clasped burnt hands. 

“We’re gonna need a vacation after this,” Noctis announced as they made their way back to the Regalia.

“Oh yeah! With plenty of time for video games and photo ops!” Prompto enthused.

“And exploring the great outdoors,” Gladio said.

“I’d be fine with a little peace and quiet,” Ignis wheezed. 

“How about all of that?” Noctis suggested. “Plus some fishing!”

Prompto and Gladio protested loudly, and Noct laughed. 

**Ignis**

Pneumonia was turning out to be one of Ignis’s least favorite ailments, but at least it was curable, he reflected as he sat in a camp chair and watched from a distance as Noct posed with the huge fish he had caught, Prompto frantically snapping pictures. 

“Want some more soup?” Gladio asked, sitting beside him and offering a bowl.

“No, thank you.” The soup was decidedly overcooked, the meat and vegetables too hard and charred for Ignis’s taste. One bowl had been enough. He had thanked Gladio warmly for cooking, then come up with several strategies to ensure that the atrocity never occurred again. The first strategy was simple: no more pneumonia. 

“I’ll eat it, then.” Gladio started scooping up huge mouthfuls, practically inhaling the stuff. 

_Well, we all have different tastes_, Ignis thought wryly. 

Noctis and Prompto came laughing back to camp, both of them too overcome with mirth to explain what was so funny.

It was nice to see them happy, free of curses and--temporarily--of the weight of responsibility.

“That looks like a fish fit for cooking,” Gladio complimented as Noct displayed his catch. “I can fry it up for lunch tomorrow.”

“No!” Ignis burst out, then calmed himself as his three friends stared at him. “No, don’t bother yourself Gladio. I’ll be feeling up to cooking by then.”

Gladio shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

The rest of the evening was quiet, relaxing, the air comfortably cool. As the sun set, Ignis took a deep breath and slowly released it in an easy, contented sigh.


End file.
